CP Special: Tag, you're it! w/Tami Gookstetter

I love tags! Really, they're my favorite and I believe them to be one of the most versatile scrapbook/card making supplies out there. Crate Paper's Tag Cuts are great because they're printed on a sheet of 12 x 12 paper, and the designs are varied and affordable. You can either use them "as is", or dress them up a little with embellishments. While I often use tags as a background element or journal spot on my layouts, I want to show you a couple of fun creative ways to use your tags differently. Follow along!

To start with, tags are a great accent for gift wrapping and packaging, and the tags from the Little Bo Peep and Little Boy Blue, are perfect for baby gifts! My good friend just had a little girl last week, so I used this pink tag with the sweet deer on it as a starting point for embellishing. I added on a hand cut heart, layered with a fabric brad, and positioned a sticker at the bottom before finishing it off with the word "baby" from Crate's Wood Shaped Veneers. I broke the word in half to make it fit on my tag a little bit better. Don't be afraid to cut/break/alter your wood veneers. I also used a wood tag from the pack and simply embellished it with an "E" for the baby's name, and then tied it all onto my jar with some baker's twine. Add some flowers from my garden and voila - an instant cute and unique gift for the proud new parents!

Next, I decided to make some teeny tiny notebooks using a tag as a cover! These cute lil' books are perfect to throw in your purse to jot down a quick note when need be, or used as an embellishment on a card or layout. They're really quick and easy to make, too. I started with a large tag, scored and folded just below where the sides narrow in, and then once more in the middle of the rectangular area. I cut some plain graph paper down to size for the inside pages and folded it in half. To bind the album, I lined up the inside pages with the folded cover, and stapled the two pieces together along the fold using a regular office stapler (which just so happened to have green staples in it). To keep the little notebook closed, I punched the a hole in the tag and wrapped twine inside, and around it.

The finished books are a great itty bitty canvas for embellishing, as well. I monogrammed one book with a letter thicker and another, with a section of border sticker and a flower cut from one of the patterned papers.

There are so many things that you can do with tags. I hope these two projects have given you a little inspiration to think outside the box and try something new with your tags! Thanks for stopping by the Crate Paper blog today!